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CWA # 1640, 31 March 2025
NIAS Africa Studies
Ethiopia: New tension points in Tigray, Amhara and Eritrea

  Anu Maria Joseph

After months of lull, the violence in Ethiopia’s Tigray and Amhara has resurged this quarter, with a fear of evolving into a full-scale conflict. The peace agreement in Tigray in November 2022 was a breakthrough towards peace, but a dismay in its process. The loopholes, limitations, and bad post-conflict policies of the state have brought Ethiopia to international attention and concern. The international media is discussing a fear of another civil conflict in Ethiopia soon. 

I
Major Developments during January- March 2025

The following were the major developments in Ethiopia this quarter. 

300 Fano members killed by federal forces
In Ethiopia, on 22 March, Al Jazeera reported that Ethiopian troops killed more than 300 rebels of Fano, the armed wing of the Amhara ethnic group, in the Tigray region. Ethiopian forces claimed that the group, former allies of federal forces during the Tigray conflict, attacked parts of Amhara. 

Political crisis in Tigray
The renewed tensions of a new wave of violence began when a faction of the Tigray region administration under the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) seized key offices and a radio station in Mekelle on 13 March. The president of Tigray's interim administration, Getachew Reda, accused the rival faction led by Debretsion Gebremichael of colluding with Eritrean forces and attempting to take over.

Looming tensions with Eritrea
This quarter also saw looming tension between Eritrea and Ethiopia after the Tigray administration accused Eritrea of occupying parts of its land along the border. Eritrea responded by describing the areas as "Eritrea's sovereign territories." Besides, Ethiopia's plans to access the sea, which have angered Eritrea, have become another tension point. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed commented on 5 March: "Our intention is to negotiate based on the principle of give and take. What the Eritrean people need is development, not conflict. Our plan is not to fight but to work together and grow together."

II
Issues

The following are the major issues behind the resurging violence in Ethiopia’s Tigray and Amhara regions and with Eritrea.

An unachieved peace agreement of 2022
In November 2022, Ethiopia signed a peace deal with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), giving hope that the ethnic conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region would end. However, the agreement was merely successful in ending the violence but not in implementing its conditions. The agreement assured the return of IDPs, disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of TPLF, elections and restoration of federal authority in Tigray, and withdrawal of Eritrean forces. Only half of the 2.1 million IDPs have been resettled as of January 2025. Eritrean forces are allegedly occupying parts of the border areas. Elections are being delayed, and justice for the victims is unaddressed.

Post-agreement instances of violence
The post-agreement developments triggered ethnic violence across Amhara and Oromia. The skirmishes began after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed demanded all ethnic militias, including Amhara’s Fano militia, Tigray’s TPLF and Oromo’s Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), to be integrated into the Ethiopian federal force following the Tigray peace agreement. Although the anti-government stance of the OLA and its attacks in the Amhara region have been ongoing since 2020, it strengthened in January 2023. The group has been advocating for the autonomy of Oromia. In August 2023, Ethiopian forces placed Amhara under de facto control after it violently resisted the policies of Abiy’s administration to disband ethnic militias, citing its right to defend itself against threats from other militias. The violent anti-government positions of Fano militias in Amhara and the call for self-determination by OLA in Oromia were met with military responses. In 2023 and 2024, Amhara and Oromia came into the spotlight through multiple instances of ethnic violence, killing hundreds of people. 

Tigray's interim administration is in crisis
Despite the peace agreement, Tigray remains highly fragile due to its continuing political disagreements within the interim administration. The interim government was supposed to end in two years, towards the election. However, the Tigray Interim Administration’s (TIA’s) mandate was extended to another year because of a slow implementation of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (COHA) signed in November 2022. It further delayed the election and triggered a power struggle within the Tigrayan leadership. TPLF leader Debretsion Gebramichael accuses Getachew Reda, leader of the Tigray Interim Administration (TIA), of intentionally delaying the process. The Debretsion-led faction of the TPLF has been appointing parallel local administrators across the region and trying to sabotage the TIA.

Increasing Ethiopia-Eritrea tensions
For the federal government, beyond the political crisis in Tigray, the concern is increasing tensions with Eritrea. Eritrean forces fought in Tigray alongside the federal forces during the 2019-2022 conflict. However, despite the peace agreement, Eritrea reportedly continues to control parts of the Irob and Sheraro districts along the Ethiopian border. TIA has described it as a violation of COHA. Ethiopia and Eritrea have been mobilising troops along the borders recently. Besides the involvement in Tigray, the tensions are also attributed to landlocked Ethiopia's ambition to access the sea. Eritrea suspects that Abiy is eyeing the port of Assab in Eritrea, which Ethiopia lost when Eritrea declared independence in 1993. Abiy Ahmed’s consistent remarks on accessing the sea have angered Asmara, which has taken it as a declaration of territorial conflict.

II
Implications

The peace agreement in Tigray in 2022 was a major achievement. However, the renewed violence in the Tigray and Amhara regions was highly anticipated, considering the loopholes and limited implementation methods of the COHA when it was drafted. Besides committing to the agreement, the federal government has made too little effort to achieve the assurances of the agreement.

For a long time, the tensions in the Oromia and Amhara regions, which have been escalating since 2020, were sidelined by the conflict in Tigray.  The conflict in Tigray was not only between TPLF and federal forces but also over decades of ethnic tensions which were looming in the region. While the peace agreement in Tigray successfully ended the violence between the TPLF and federal forces, it undermined the decades of ethnic tensions involving Tigray, Amhara and Oromia over land, domination, representation and marginalisation.

The post-agreement ethnic tensions and instances of violence were predominantly attributed to Abiy Ahmed’s repressive policies to achieve his vision of unifying Ethiopia. Abiy resorted to demobilising and integrating ethnic armed groups through force, which ultimately backfired. For ethnic militias, without a dialogue, resolving decades of ethnic tensions and rebuilding trust and co-existence, a peaceful integration into federal forces was unimaginable.

Violent conflicts in Tigray, along with Amhara and potentially Oromia, are on the brink of re-emerging. Tigray’s internal political tensions, Fano violence in Amhara and looming tensions with Eritrea have converged at the same time, warning of a potential full-scale violent conflict in the country during the next quarter.

About the author
Anu Maria Joseph is a Project Associate at NIAS.
 

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